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Oscar Mestas named Texas Arborist of the Year

El Pasoan Oscar Mestas, a regional urban forester, has been named Texas Arborist of the Year. He helped preserve the giant Aleppo pine behind him. Planted in the 1960s, it is the tallest tree of its kind in Texas.(Photo: Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times)Buy Photo

Story Highlights

Walking around with forester Oscar Mestas in Downtown El Paso is probably like seeing a plastic surgeon judge a beauty pageant.

Most of us just see trees of various sizes growing along sidewalks around city buildings. Mestas, with 24 years of experience as a regional urban forester with the Texas A&M Forest Service, can see the efforts city leaders have made to plant more trees and preserve natural environments, but he also sees the flaws that affect sustainability of landscapes.

He points out where trees are too big for their plots or have been planted too close together — for example, where one tree's canopy is hovering over a smaller tree — perhaps the result of a 2011 city ordinance that called for one tree every 30 feet in areas next to a street.

In October, Mestas was named Arborist of the Year at the Texas Community Forestry and Tree Care Awards. The awards are given during the annual Texas Tree Conference organized by the Texas chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture and the Texas A&M Forest Service urban forestry department.

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El Pasoan Oscar Mestas, a regional urban forester, has been named Texas Arborist of the Year. He helped preserve the giant Aleppo pine behind him. The tree is between the Federal Courthouse and the Federal Building in Downtown El Paso. Planted in the 1960s, it is the tallest tree of its kind in Texas.(Photo: Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times)

He is in charge of 23 counties, including El Paso, and is constantly on the road.

He loves what he does. "It's a lot of fun and super challenging," he said.

"It's a job where I get to watch things grow literally and think, wow, I've had an impact," he said. "I can go to almost any community in my area, whether it's Balmorhea or Sanderson or Dell City, and I can say I helped put those trees in the ground."

As the only forester in this part of the desert, Mestas is constantly looking for ways to help El Paso develop sustainable programs that provide Texans with healthy trees.

He creates printed guides for growing and maintaining trees. He aims to educate people about planting trees, often saying you have to pick "the right tree for the right spot." He points out that one large tree can absorb the carbon dioxide of a car driven 500 miles and remove 10 pounds of air pollution in one year.

He consults with El Paso's Parks and Recreation Department when they notice health issues with their park trees and other area landscape projects. On this particular day, he responds to an email from a contractor who has been hired to plant trees in a Horizon City development project but has been informed that irrigation will cease soon after planting.

“Anything that has to do with trees, if anyone wants to ask my advice, I can give it.”

Oscar Mestas, urban forester

"All I can do is facilitate and help, I don't have any authority," he said. "Anything that has to do with trees, if anyone wants to ask my advice, I can give it. ... I have 30 years of experience, not just as a forester but I'm a certified arborist and Urban Forest Strike Team-trained for going after storms to help out, and I get to do all of this all across the state."

Denise Rodriguez, agriculture agent with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, said Mestas is a great educator.

"Oscar is a great team member to educate the green industry on the importance of tree care and health. He has a great leadership style," she said. "He leads by example and always encourages our local landscapers to pursue educational opportunities to become certified arborists."

Rodriguez added, "We currently work together on many educational programs, including the Sun Country Landscape Conference, and are board members of the West Texas Urban Forestry Council.

"On the homeowners side, Oscar is great presenter for tree care, selection and maintenance.He has taught the Tree Care portion of the Master Gardener class for the past 20 years. Oscar tirelessly advocates for increasing the number of appropriate trees in our region."

One of the highlights of his career involved an El Paso construction project several years ago that might have put a champion tree in danger. A champion tree is the tallest tree of its species in the state of Texas. In this case, the Aleppo pine in front of the new Federal Courthouse on San Antonio Street is the tallest of its kind in the state.

"So when I heard about the project, that they were going to redo the placita around the tree, I contacted the city of El Paso and said 'I want you to know that's a state champion tree there, and it would be nice if the city took precautions to save the tree during construction,' " he said.

Mestas said the city accepted his guidance. They also hired a certified arborist to monitor the construction.

"They did very minimal root damage and put in an irrigation system during construction and put up a protective fence — so by doing simple things like that, they saved the tree," he said proudly.

Recently, he has been helping the Texas A&M Forest Service celebrate 100 years of service by delivering seedlings to different cities in his region.

"We are giving 100 cities 100 trees, so I've been busy picking them up and delivering them in my region, to Marfa, Alpine, Vinton and El Paso," he said.

Each community decides how to use their trees. Many will plant them on Friday, Nov. 6, Texas' Arbor Day.

María Cortés González may be reached at 546-6150;mcortes@elpasotimes.com; @EPTMaria on Twitter.

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Homeowners can learn about trees and their maintainence Nov. 21 at the Sun Country Landscaping Conference.(Photo: Maria Cortes Gonzalez / El Paso Times)

Another award

El Paso earned another award at the Texas Community Forestry and Tree Care Awards. The 2015 Gold Leaf Award went to the University of Texas at El Paso's Campus Transformation Project.

With the addition of 700 trees of 24 varieties, the project revives the natural arroyo terrain that once defined the center of campus before it was replaced with roads and parking lots. The project planted a variety of drought-tolerant shade trees, environmentally sensitive shrubs, and grasses and plants native to the Chihuahua Desert.

The landscaping is expected to lower temperatures and help prevent heat exhaustion.